WELCOME TO RACED
We Advance Equity and Dignity Through Research and Data-Driven Insights
The Research Analytic Center for Equity and Dignity (RACED) is a nonprofit research institute dedicated to understanding how structural inequities affect vulnerable and underserved communities across Seattle and the surrounding metropolitan area. Through rigorous, data-driven research, RACED seeks to uncover the various barriers that prevent individuals and families from achieving opportunity, well-being, and long-term stability.
A key part of RACED’s approach is collecting data directly from people and communities that are often underrepresented, overlooked, or missing from traditional data systems. Some individuals affected by serious social challenges are rarely reached by conventional surveys, administrative systems, or institutional data collection and, as a result, their experiences may remain unheard or uncounted. RACED’s main goal is to close this gap by reaching people directly, listening to their experiences, and ensuring that their voices are represented in the data used to understand social problems and inform decisions. This includes people experiencing homelessness or housing instability, students and educators, frontline service providers, survivors of sex trafficking and abuse, and victims of crime.
RACED believes that meaningful solutions begin by listening to those who live these realities every day. By creating opportunities for people to speak openly about their frustrations, experiences, challenges, and perspectives, RACED provides a platform for voices that are too often unheard and helps bring the experiences of underserved communities into the conversations and decisions that affect their lives. This community-informed approach, combined with rigorous statistical analysis and research methodology, enables RACED to produce reliable evidence, identify the root causes of inequity, and generate actionable recommendations that support more equitable, effective, and human-centered policies and programs.
Research Areas
🔹 Housing & Homelessness
RACED seeks to understand homelessness by listening closely to the people who live it. Our work extends beyond statistics to examine the social and economic realities that make it challenging for individuals and families to find and maintain stable housing. Through direct conversations, community-based fieldwork, and careful data analysis, we document the everyday barriers people face, such as gaps in access to support services.
This research is not only about identifying problems; it is about pointing toward practical, evidence-based solutions shaped by lived experience. By grounding our findings in real stories and real conditions, RACED helps inform housing strategies that strengthen affordability, connect people to employment and essential services, and prevent housing loss before it occurs. Our goal is to ensure that housing responses are rooted in dignity, equity, and inclusion, and that they support long-term stability for people who are too often left unheard.
🔹Public Health & Healthcare Access
RACED examines health inequities by paying close attention to how people actually experience healthcare in their daily lives. Many individuals and communities struggle to access the care they need for many reasons. Our work focuses on understanding the barriers that prevent people from receiving timely, affordable, and culturally appropriate health services.
Through direct engagement and careful analysis, RACED documents challenges such as limited access to preventive and primary care, gaps in insurance coverage and affordability, unequal health outcomes across demographic groups, and barriers to mental and behavioral health services. These obstacles often lead to delayed treatment, untreated conditions, and preventable health risks. This research is not only about identifying where health systems fall short; it is about informing practical, evidence-based solutions rooted in lived experience. By grounding data in real stories and real conditions, RACED supports healthcare providers, public agencies, and policy leaders in designing more equitable and human-centered health strategies that protect dignity.
🔹Education & Opportunity
RACED studies education by paying close attention to the everyday experiences of students, families, and communities within school systems. Our research looks at how differences in access to quality teaching, learning materials, safe classrooms, and supportive academic environments shape students’ paths over time.
These conditions influence not only how students learn, but also whether they graduate, what opportunities are available to them, and how education affects their long-term economic stability. By listening to those most affected, RACED identifies the structural and social barriers that place some students at a disadvantage from an early age. Our work shows how unequal learning conditions can follow students throughout their lives, shaping future education, employment, and mobility. Grounded in lived experience, our findings help educators, policymakers, and community leaders build learning systems that are more equitable, supportive, and responsive.
🔹Criminal Justice & Social Protection
RACED seeks to understand criminal justice and social protection systems by listening to the people who move through them. Our research focuses on how policies, everyday practices, and system design shape individuals’ ability to access protection, support services, and pathways to stability.
These experiences are especially significant for communities that are disproportionately affected by surveillance, criminalization, and long-standing structural inequities. By engaging directly with individuals navigating arrest, incarceration, reentry, and social protection systems, RACED documents how these systems are experienced in real life—where support is available, where it falls short, and how system barriers affect long-term housing stability, health, employment, and family life. Grounded in lived experience, our findings help policymakers, service providers, and community leaders develop justice and protection systems that are more equitable, accountable, and human-centered, and that treat dignity and fairness as essential, not optional.
🔹Economic Inequality & Labor Access
RACED studies economic inequality by listening to people navigating work, income instability, and limited access to opportunity. Our research looks closely at how barriers such as hiring discrimination, unequal pay, unstable working conditions, and limited access to quality jobs affect people’s ability to achieve financial security and plan for the future. By engaging directly with workers and job seekers, RACED documents how race, gender, education, immigration status, and socioeconomic background shape everyday experiences in the labor market—from finding work to advancing in a career. This grounded approach reveals how structural forces, not individual effort alone, restrict access to fair wages, job stability, and economic mobility. Our findings help inform workforce policies and employment systems that are more equitable, inclusive, and dignity-centered, enabling individuals and families to build stable and sustainable livelihoods.
Featured Ongoing Research Project
Study 1 — Living Without Shelter: A Statistical Investigation of the Root Factors Associated with Unsheltered Homelessness
This study examines the root causes — economic, health, social, structural, and service accessibility — associated with prolonged unsheltered homelessness. Using primary data collected directly from individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness across King County communities, the research combines rigorous statistical analysis with participants’ lived experiences and priorities to better understand the factors contributing to prolonged homelessness.
[Explore the Project →]
Current status: Research Protocol Development
RACED is currently developing the research protocol, measurement framework, participant questionnaire, sampling strategy, and ethical safeguards for this study. Participant recruitment and field data collection will begin after the research protocol and required participant-protection procedures are finalized.
The project will be implemented in two phases. Phase 1 will serve as a pilot study in Federal Way, Washington, where RACED will test the research methodology, collect initial field data, evaluate the study procedures, and generate preliminary evidence on the factors associated with unsheltered homelessness.
Building on the findings and lessons from the Federal Way pilot, Phase 2 will expand the study across King County, allowing RACED to reach a larger and more diverse population, compare experiences across communities, and develop broader evidence-based recommendations for addressing unsheltered homelessness.
Federal Way Pilot → Evaluate and Refine → King County Expansion → Evidence-Based Recommendations
Expected outcome: A comprehensive report and policy recommendations for state and local decision-makers
The study is expected to generate a comprehensive, community-sourced evidence base describing the lived realities of individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness in the Seattle metropolitan area. Through the integration of quantitative and qualitative data, the research will produce a detailed statistical profile of unsheltered individuals, highlighting key demographic characteristics, structural drivers, and barriers to housing and services. The findings will include an equity-focused analysis that identifies disparities across gender, race, age, and veteran status, as well as variations in health, safety, and service access
Partner With RACED to Advance Equity and Dignity
RACED partners with organizations, institutions, and agencies committed to advancing equity and human dignity through evidence-based action. Our collaborative approach brings together grounded, community-sourced data and rigorous analysis to support informed decision-making and meaningful social impact. RACED believes that meaningful change requires collaboration across sectors. Advancing equity and human dignity depends on shared knowledge, coordinated action, and partnerships grounded in mutual respect and accountability.
🔹Institutions and academic centers
🔹Government agencies and local authorities
🔹Nonprofit organizations
🔹Community-based organizations
🔹Policy and advocacy groups
🔹Academic researchers and students
Together, we can transform research into real-world impact that protects dignity and expands opportunity for underserved communities.
Interested in partnering, supporting our projects, or requesting research insights?
Visit our Contact RACED page — we would be glad to connect.